Raglan Road Kicks Off Mighty St. Patrick’s Festival (But Offers Great Food & Entertainment All Year Round!)

Hi everyone!

We were invited to a preview of the Raglan Road Mighty St. Patrick’s Festival last night. The event kicks off Friday, March 15th, 2019 at 3:00 p.m. and runs through Sunday, March 17th, 2019 – St. Patrick’s Day. While the focus yesterday was on the festival itself and I will talk about it, the food we tried and a lot of great entertainment is available all year round. The Mighty St. Patrick’s Festival does turn it up a few notches, and St. Patrick’s Day itself will be very busy with no reservations available and a $10.00 cover charge for guests 18+. Raglan Road is an authentic Irish pub (the restaurant was built in Ireland and assembled here) at Disney Springs and is just a lively place to visit much of the time. So even if you cannot visit for the St. Patrick’s Day Festival, you can enjoy Irish entertainment, food and drink throughout the year.

Here is our experience from yesterday. You can check out the entertainment schedule here.

Signage is up for the Mighty St. Patrick’s Festival outside of the restaurant. Raglan Road is located in The Landing area of Disney Springs, it has been here since the days of Pleasure Island (opening in 2005). Next year, Raglan Road will turn 15 – that is really hard to believe!

The Mighty St. Patrick’s Festival takes over the advertising outside the restaurant this week.

Raglan Road isn’t hard to find at Disney Springs, it is close to the Marketplace.

We were in a room off to the side with our group, but entertainment is in the Grand Room. I have sat in here many times and it’s a great place to watch entertainment on the main stage.

First up during our meal was The Pride of the Peninsula with Dingle Irish Gin, Fever Tree Elderflower Tonic, fresh lime, cucumber and mint. This is a terrific drink if you are looking for something refreshing and relatively light – especially in the summer.

Fever Tree and cucumber were out as drinks were being made.

Two items we were served are not from Raglan Road but from Cookes of Dublin next door. It is one of my favorite counter service locations at Disney Springs.  This is the Hog in the Box, which is a popular and delicious dish consisting of slow roasted park shoulder with baby potatoes, sage and sweet onion stuffing, carmelized onions, apple sauce garnishing with pork crackling.

Cookes of Dublin plans to add some menu items this summer. One possibility for that menu is this Mini Chicken Slider. And if it does get added, it could be full size instead of smaller (everything we had was a smaller portion than usual). Crispy breaded chicken, bacon jam, and pickled onions made for a very nice sandwich. This is an item I would order if it gets added to the menu.

The Heavenly Ham offers Irish Mist loin of bacon with savoy cabbage, calcannon potatoes, parsley cream sauce and a raisin cider jus.

Maċa is a terrific 3-piece Traditional & Folk band have been playing recently at Raglan Road and will be for the Festival.

Jeff ordered two different beers during the evening, the Brehon Blonde which is described as a “refreshing, very pale, golden beer with a hoppy and citrus overtone and a malty, biscuity finish”. He also ordered a Guiness. Raglan Road offers a nice selection of beers, as you would expect and he enjoyed both.

Next up, Fish & Chips. You can find this here at Raglan Road or next door at Cookes of Dublin.

Here is a look at the Fish & Chips on a plate – this is a classic and one of the most popular items at Raglan Road and Cookes. I don’t eat fish (Jeff does), and the great thing about Raglan Road and Cookes is there are other options too – for myself, I usually ordered the Battered Chicken Tenders at Cookes.

The Raglan Risotto includes butternut squash risotto, shitake mushrooms, parmesan, peas and macro greens with parmesan chips. The flavors didn’t work for me as much on this dish.

The Gnocchi Sea Gnocchi Do was a popular item at the table, including handmade potato gnocchi, seared Georges bank scallops, crispy pork belly, tomatoes and kale in a white wine butter sauce.

For dessert, we had Ger’s Bread and Butter Pudding. This is a very well known dessert here, one of my favorites on Walt Disney World property and has been here since the restaurant opened. It is a must after a meal if you have room.

There was entertainment on stage as we left. I mentioned that there is entertainment each day – the festival hadn’t started yet, but we saw all kinds of music and dancing in the time we were there.

The bands on stage swapped off with the dancers.

The Raglan Road Irish Dancers took to the stage.

Ben Gunnery has been soloist for high-profile productions like Riverdance and films including Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.

If you can make it to Raglan Road for the Mighty St. Patrick’s Festival Weekend, I definitely recommend it! But you can enjoy so much of what I showed year round at the restaurant/pub.